


the adults you are looking for are in another caravan

by ushauz



Series: the adults you are looking for are in another caravan [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-10-27
Packaged: 2021-01-04 17:28:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21201392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ushauz/pseuds/ushauz
Summary: Fenris has dedicated himself to hunting slavers, but there's one inevitable outcome that comes from such a profession.And that is freeing mages.





	the adults you are looking for are in another caravan

The thing was, it wasn’t exactly like slavers advertised much of the finer points of who they had caught. One could track missing people, sure, but when Fenris would hunt down a slaver caravan, he wouldn’t exactly know who the victims were. He was just killing slavers and setting people free from their captivity.

It was a good life to choose, and that was something he could do now. Choose what he did, what he pursued. And what he chose was to kill slavers.

But as he stepped over the various dismembered and dis-organed slaver bodies, he hesitated, as the ‘cargo’ was five terrified children. Plus one excited child who had been cheering and clapping when Fenris had been killing the slavers.

This was fine. He wasn’t particularly good with kids, but he could manage. Granted, every time he had freed kids before, there had been adults to put the children back where they belonged, or find homes to take them in if they hadn’t had one. This would require some improvisation, but this was simply what happened when one dedicated themselves to killing slavers.

He picked the keys off of a body and unlocked the cage before kneeling down, gesturing to their manacles.

“I can get those off now,” he said.

The first one to volunteer was the excited child, and the others with varying degrees of distrust followed suit. Three of them were human, two (including the excitable one) were elves, and there was one that looked like he may have been of both elven and human blood.

“Do you have families?” Fenris asked.

“I think so?” the excited one said. Fenris had no idea what gender the child was. “Not sure where they are though.”

“Mine didn’t want me,” a human girl said.

“…did they sell you?” Fenris asked reluctantly.

“No, they gave me to the Templars,” the human girl said. “Don’t think they got any money for that.”

Ah.

“Are you… all mages?” he asked.

One by one they nodded.

“And there’s no adults,” Fenris said slowly.

Had this been but a year ago, the solution would be easy: drop off the kids at the nearest Circle. The problem was, the Circles were rebelling which was entirely Anders’ fault, and now Fenris didn’t know which ones were still up and which weren’t. He couldn’t be bothered to keep track of such things.

Normally he could try to find a family willing to take in children, but these were _ mage _ children. They needed other mages to teach them to be non-destructive members of society, and Fenris didn’t know and normally didn’t _ care _where apostate mages hid. They tried to keep that a secret for a reason.

“There _ were _ adults,” the elf child said. “But we got separated. They split us into groups.”

Now that was promising. “How long ago was this?”

“Four days I think?”

Fenris could manage with that. The caravan may have split up, but if he hurried and angled his trajectory, he might be able to cut them off.

—

Traveling with kids was difficult. Kids couldn’t move at the same pace. Some of the kids complained loudly. He worried about the few that didn’t. One of the human boys didn’t talk at all, but a grubby human girl—who kept summoning small fires that made Fenris count down until she burned something or herself—would talk for him. Somehow. The human boy didn’t seem to mind.

The elf child of ambiguous gender was named ‘Aisil’ and asked him how long he’d been hunting slavers, and how many he killed, and if they were always that gross when being killed. Also, how long it would take to learn how to rip people’s guts out like that, and if that’s something anyone could learn how to do.

Aisil seemed to lead their fellow children and was far more of an encouraging factor than Fenris was. They weren’t the oldest; the one of mixed blood was, but he was quieter and mostly helped carry the supplies some of the smaller ones weren’t able to.

At least the slavers had been carrying enough food for a few weeks. All dried meats and fruit and tack, but the children tore into it all the same.

Somehow, he was still able to cut off the next slaving caravan. He told the kids firmly to stay put behind several layers of tree and then began walking quietly forward, hand on his sword.

He would have to hope that this was the right caravan. He didn’t want to watch children for too long.

One of the slavers turned, eyes widening in recognition, but Fenris paid him little mind. Normal combatants were not of much threat, not to someone like him. There was a bitter irony that Danarius had made him into something that was just so good at killing slavers. He flickered his lyrium, letting an arrow simply go through him, and then he pulsed it, boosting his speed to catch up with the first one with one good swing.

The rest of the slavers quickly followed in death. Not even a slaver mage gave him much trouble, as the lyrium that enhanced him protected him from some of the worst of magic’s ill effects, and this mage was obviously not trained in the finer points of upfront combat, having relied upon the meat shields of their fallen comrades.

Fenris took just a moment to breathe afterward, but felt rather good about things. If nothing else, more slavers were dead, and some children, whatever their status, had been rescued. He could now wipe his hands in just a moment and be done with it all.

—

“I am sorry, but my duties do not involve childcare,” one of the Tranquil said.

Because they were _ all _ Tranquil. All twelve of them. Tranquil were disturbing on any day. What he knew of them he had mostly gleaned from Anders, who could usually be considered a biased sort, but he knew enough that not all Tranquil were alike. Some were more… functioning than others, for lack of a better word.

A couple seemed intent on tidying up the battlefield. Another was already making stock of the supplies, counting through them. One of the fellow Tranquil touched that one’s shoulder, but she shrugged off the touch, focusing on counting.

Fenris felt his hopes sink.

“Are any of the rest of you good with children? Mage children?” he asked. Maybe he’d get lucky and-

“Mage children will need to be instructed for proper safety of magic,” one of the Tranquil said tonelessly. “While there are Tranquil theorists, none of us performed that function.”

Fenris swore, in Tevene, heavily.

“Can you temporarily look after children? Were there no competent adults who were looking after them?”

“There were some,” another of the Tranquil said dispassionately. “Some were killed for being too unruly. A few others were killed for spell components I believe. But a number were taken elsewhere. It was believed that if we didn’t have them around, we might be more agreeable.”

“Alright,” Fenris said. “Okay. Fine. I can work with this.”

—

The next caravan had _ more _ mage kids. The one after that had no mages at all, just normal people happy to be freed.

They still side-eyed the growing number of mage children and Tranquil following Fenris at this point, but declined to mention anything. Being saved had that effect on people.

The one after that had mostly Tranquil and then exactly one adult mage.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” she said in the most strangled tone, tugging her hat lower for some reason. One of the kids tried to get closer, and she scampered back. “Kids are so great? They are just small and full of teeth? And then the teeth fall out, and that’s how it works with kids, and that’s not creepy at all. And you know, they are just true treasures, and I know plenty of magic to teach them.”

It wasn’t his fault the one adult mage was afraid of kids; that was her problem. She could get over it.

The fire human girl gave her a questioning look. “Enchanter Ingrid, all you know how to do is make plants grow.”

“A useful skill!” Ingrid said. “One I can definitely teach you voidspawn.”

…it wouldn’t do to let a slaver cell survive, Fenris supposed.

—

Two weeks after Fenris found the children and half a day into Tevinter itself, the adult mages were found. And it did appear to be all of them, about thirty total, shackled and crammed into only two caravans with runes to dispel magic inside. They were dirty and disheveled and _ very happy _ to be rescued.

Fenris had at first wondered how so many mages were able to be captured, but this was the cell that had the ex-Templars, identifiable as such by the way they tried to Smite Fenris’ abilities. Smiting did nothing to Fenris, but he would feel a ghost of an impression, an unpleasant pressure upon his lyrium. It had disturbing connotations, but on the other hand, ‘Smiting doesn’t work on me’ was a great debate-ender to Anders on why his abilities weren’t magic.

“I found your kids,” Fenris said after having let out the mages. A number of them immediately cast magic, which put Fenris on guard, but they weren’t doing anything with it. Just playing with lights or fire or ice and dismissing it as quickly.

One of the mages looked over the assembled mass of people Fenris had rescued.

“Well I mean. This is more kids than we started with?”

Fenris gave him a look.

“Not that we don’t mind taking in more kids!” the man quickly said. “I just thought- well, we can look after them now.”

“Thank you for freeing what looks like the remainders of our entire Circle,” a lady said, gratitude in her voice.

“Ugh,” Fenris said.

“The mage underground will not forget your kind deeds,” she continued.

“What?” Fenris said.

“We will spread word-”

“No!”

“-of the great blessing you have done for us.”

“Absolutely not!” Fenris said. “No mage underground hears anything about any of this. As far as all of you are concerned, someone else saved you.”

Aisil was now miming ripping out hearts in a reenactment.

“Nobody tells anyone anything,” Fenris said.

“If you say so,” one of the mages said, and sounded absolutely like they were going to tell everyone they ever met.

“You are all free. Don’t get caught again,” Fenris said. “I am finished with this.”

And then he walked off, leaving them to figure out what to do next, and hopefully to discourage them from spreading any rumors about his habits.

The last thing he would ever need to come of this was _ Anders _ finding out.

**Author's Note:**

> Fenris would go on to free many more mages over the next few years. The Mage Underground, being a bunch of gossips, spread knowledge of this, and he becomes known as an ally of mage freedom in the South.
> 
> Anders absolutely hears about this and then consequentially laughs himself sick.


End file.
